Michigan's main public pension system is nearing the hire of a fund of hedge funds manager.The investment staff of the state's Bureau of Investments has almost finished its search, spokesman Caleb Buhs told Pensions & Investments. The selected fund of funds manager will win part of the $51.4 billion Michigan Retirement System's 6% hedge fund allocation.

Michigan boosted that allocation from 2% to 6% last year. Currently, the pension has about 2.8% of its portfolio—$1.46 billion—invested in hedge funds.

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We are accustomed to splitting trading into technical and fundamental buckets. Both involve crunching data; one set includes market fundamentals and the other pure price data. Alternative data is a third bucket that is gaining traction.